Wednesday, May 09, 2007

The Humour of Zwingli

Jim is to be thanked for the time he has spent working on this excellent English translation of Fritz Schmidt-Clausing's original, Zwinglis Humor. And I can confirm that the translation is good as my own beautiful wife also spent a considerable amount of time working through the whole text, helping out with numerous translation issues.

I wrote a review of the book for the back cover which I'll simply reproduce here:

" If any had imagined Zwingli as a straight-faced, humanist dogmatician and dull producer of theological fossils, this is the book to set things straight; it reconnects us with the real Reformer, with a man of deep theological energy and pastoral concern often delivered in the shape of biting wit, creative puns and a variety of other hilarious forms. In other words, this is a man we can identify with, making him appear all the more as someone worthy of out study and interest. Dr. West has done us all a service in not only producing a long-needed republication of the Schmidt-Clausing text, but his translation helps make the sometimes complex idiomatic German word-plays accessible to English-language readers."

It really is a lot of fun to read, and I suspect that many will discover a whole new side to Zwingli. And you'll like what you see.

None other than Dr. Emidio CampiandDr. Peter Opitz have also written glowing reports on the backcover, all of which can be read by following the link above. Big names in Zwlingli studies for sure: Campi, Opitz, and, er, *cough* Tilling. Actually, I consciously wrote my review in light of the fact that I am a non-specialist in Zwinglian studies, and I found this book created far more interest in Zwingli than any other I have read.

Bob- Zwingli never burned an organ in his life. Instead, he had very good reasons for requiring the organ at the Grossmunster be silent. First, as was common practice, musicians were rather self centered and believed worship should exalt them. And second, dogs laying next to their masters would often howl and disrupt the service. And yes, dogs lay on the floor in those days. Quite often.

So rather than allow the service to be barked through and the musicians to exalt themselves- Zwingli called a halt to it.

And anon- there's a discount... But even if you don't want one you will be able to get it from the library eventually.